In prior semiconductor devices where highly doped extension regions abut or are in close proximity to a highly doped gate region, a high electric field is created at the gate/extension junctions due to applied drain voltage. This high electric field causes effects, such as band-to-band tunneling between the gate region and the extension regions. Typically, in the OFF-state of a transistor, the gate voltage is “OFF” with the drain at the supply voltage. Therefore, high-field effects like band-to-band tunneling cause leakage currents when the device is in an OFF-state. This increases the OFF-state leakage current, Ioff, of the device. This high leakage current causes higher chip standby current and power dissipation. This makes the device undesirable for particular applications.